A common confusion is to equate “affections” with “emotions.” But there are several differences, as summarized in this chart from McDermott (p. 40):

Affections

Emotions

Long-lasting

Fleeting

Deep

Superficial

Consistent with beliefs

Sometimes overpowering

Always result in action

Often fail to produce action

Involve mind, will, feelings

Feelings (often) disconnected from the mind and will

He explains why affections are different than emotions:

Emotions (feelings) are often involved in affections, but the affections are not defined by emotional feeling. Some emotions are disconnected from our strongest inclinations.

For instance, a student who goes off to college for the first time may feel doubtful and fearful. She will probably miss her friends and family at home. A part of her may even try to convince her to go back home. But she will discount these fleeting emotions as simply that—feelings that are not produced by her basic conviction that now it is time to start a new chapter in life.

The affections are something like that girl’s basic conviction that she should go to college, despite fleeting emotions that would keep her at home. They are strong inclination that may at times conflict with more fleeting and superficial emotions. (pp. 32-33)

Certainly there is what may rightly be called an emotional dimension to affections. Affections, after all, are sensible and intense longings or aversions of the will. Perhaps it would be best to say that whereas affections are not less than emotions, they are surely more.

Emotions can often be no more than physiologically heightened states of either euphoria or fear that are unrelated to what the mind perceives as true.

Affections, on the other hand, are always the fruit or effect of what the mind understands and knows. The will or inclination is moved either toward or away from something that is perceived by the mind.

An emotion or mere feeling, on the other hand, can rise or fall independently of and unrelated to anything in the mind.

One can experience an emotion or feeling without it properly being an affection, but one can rarely if ever experience an affection without it being emotional and involving intense feelings that awaken and move and stir the body. (p. 45)

Sarah’s provision of Hagar was a reenactment of Eve’s provision of the forbidden fruit. It was the human attempt to fulfill the New Creation Promise through sin. It was based on wayward emotions built on unbelief. A wholesome affection is built on an unwavering trust in God who raises the dead (and vivifies the dead womb) and keeps His promises.

Wholesome affections are built on this Rock: a conviction that God will deliver life in the face of death.

It is fine to understand that emotions are not an end in and of themselves, but I believe it is incredibly important for us as gospel centered theologians to understand the role of emotions beyond the characteristics listed here. This leans a little heavy on discounting them. (Leans heavy, I recognize the article doesn’t push emotions over the cliff)

Indeed it leans heavy, too much so. To assert that “An emotion or mere feeling, on the other hand, can rise or fall independently of and unrelated to anything in the mind” and that “Feelings [are](often) disconnected from the mind and will” is to significantly misunderstand how emotions work. Some of the best and most recent work on emotions (see, e.g., M. Elliott Faith Feelings [Kregel 2006]; R. C. Solomon Not Passion’s Slave [Oxford 2003]; R. C. Roberts, Emotions: An Essay in Moral Psychology [Cambridge 2003]) defends a cognitive view of the emotions. Scripture seems to presuppose such a view. If most (not a small percentage of) emotions have a cognitive element, then they are not to be ignored as mere fleeting feelings.

If Jesus is fully human, absolutely sinless, and and always virtuous, than any emotion he experienced (fear, anger, rejoicing, sadness) is not an option for Christians but a mandate.

With all due respect and appreciation for the general point you’re driving at, I think the definitions you are using (and their concomitant distinctions) are incorrect, unhelpful, and perhaps even harmful. I certainly appreciate that we as a culture, and as Christians living in this culture, often chase after fleeting emotions all too often. I think this is the point you’re getting at, but this post in broadly oversteps this concept. I can think of no one better than Jonathan Edwards, whom you mentioned in the first sentence of this post, to illustrate your errors.

Jonathan Edwards used “affections” in a way that is entirely inconsistent with the definitions you’ve drawn. For example, Edwards writes that the primary purpose of praise music should be that it stir man’s affections for God. He is describing a relatively temporary (not long-lasting), but God-glorifying, experience in which man is drawn closer to God through singing. This experience would fit more closely with the “emotion” side of the chart you drew, and I think it shows the shortcomings of the definitions you’re using.

Similarly, and much more importantly, Jonathan Edwards does not claim that affections “always result in action.” In fact, you have it perfectly backward: instead, the chief end of all actions should be, as Jonathan Edwards argues, to develop man’s affections for God. Affections are the goal, not the process. Actions are the process, not the goal. You have it backward: that actions are the goal and that affections are the process. A strict application of its backwardness would lead to a works-centric grace.

There are plenty other things to quibble about (e.g., whether ALL emotions are intrinsically and necessarily fleeting or superficial), but a comment-response can only hit the high notes.

I wonder if the social sciences might provide some insights into the distinction. The affective domain in education is the domain associated with feelings and values. While associated with mood, it is a complex conglomeration of perception, reaction, and emotion. Having read both McDermott and Edwards, I couldn’t help but conclude that what Edwards meant by “affection” translates into “values” today.

In other words, for Edwards, affections are “that which I consider to be valuable and important,” which derives from what I know (cognition) and also from my will and volition (conation). Based on that, affection can be shaped, molded, and directed according to that which I believe.

Emotions, then, are the internal reaction I have to a perceived event, and are transient based upon my perception of the even. While emotion is true, in the sense that it is a genuine reaction, it may be based upon false or inadequate perception. If you kick me in the shin, I will experience anger. If you tell me you prevented a scorpion from stinging me by kicking me in the shin, my knowledge is altered, as is my perception, and my emotion will then change.

I would be curious as to what others think about this statement (not sure where I picked it up from)?:

God’s affect is on my heart – what the heart wants or desires or loves is what the will chooses and what the mind justifies or the mind is captive to what the will wants and the will wants what the heart desires